“Jessamy, please henceforward address people by their names instead of the insulting nicknames given to them by your father, which to my shame I did not protest vigorously enough. His is Montu-en.”
I flinch at Mother’s mild tone, and now I want to cry.
She touches my cheek with her free hand. “Let me look at your face, Jessamy. What a stubborn inflammation this is. I was told you were in the mines. How did you receive that injury?”
“A whip.”
Her gaze meets mine in quiet fury. “Who whipped you and left you to suffer and starve?”
All my breath has left my lungs. The best I can manage is a shrug.
She nods, because she already knows who it must be.
“Mother.” I don’t know how to ask. The question seems stupid, but I have to know.
“Say what is in your heart, Jessamy.”
“Do you come from some secret royal Efean family, living in hiding all this time?”
Her laughter makes me laugh, although I don’t know why. “Not at all, although it is sweet of you to think it might be true. I grew up in a village by a marsh, fishing, weeding, and climbing palms to harvest dates. It was the most boring life imaginable.” She smiles to herself, secretive and amused. “Going to Saryenia was the greatest adventure I could imagine when I was sixteen. That’s why I never looked back. Well, that and meeting your father.” She grows pensive, then looks up brightly as Cook approaches. “Ah! Here is the food.”
Safarenwe squirms, and Mother hands her to me to burp.
“I want something to do, Mother, a job like you gave to Polodos.”
“Eat first. Ro-emnu, you may sit beside Jessamy.”
“Honored Lady,” he says, right hand pressed to his chest. His shining expression betrays how much he admires her.
“Jes? Maraya!” Amaya has finished dispensing with the annoying supplicant and pelts over to crush us with enthusiastic hugs. She coaxes Denya to the mat like her lover is a skittish kitten. We sit in our little family group eating our meal as if the world hasn’t turned upside down around us. All we lack is Bettany criticizing anything and everything, and Father reclining at his ease amid the women he loves.
Ro touches my elbow. “Jessamy? Are you all right?”
“A speck of dirt in my eye.”
Does Father suspect that Mother leads the people who intend to overthrow all he holds sacred and meaningful?
Where is Kalliarkos now? Is he eating a sumptuous meal in a pit of snakes as Gargaron gloats?
I know I shouldn’t be thinking about them, and yet I can’t bear to throw them into the current and allow the river to carry them away.
Yet when rebellion is stirring, a peaceful meal can last only so long. Maraya takes charge of setting up a new Archives, using an unused clerks’ office as her headquarters. Amaya and I accompany Mother to a pleasure garden inside the palace, now called “the petition garden.”
Mother sits patiently as people come forward with requests and disputes and demands. Watching her, I finally understand that Inarsis wasn’t courting my mother because he had fallen in love with her. He was courting her fearlessness, her generosity, her intelligence, her tranquil firmness. Her skill at negotiating across a vast divide without losing her self or her temper. It’s no wonder people trust her.
After a while I doze on a mat with Safarenwe curled against my chest but wake to alertness when the boys from the Inkos temple are herded in. They are frightened and dirty, and have been cowed out of their childish Patron arrogance by the long journey they undertook on foot. Three crows land on the roof. I ease away from the baby and kneel behind Mother.
“The boy with the cloth tied over his eyes was in training to become a crow priest. Allow Maraya to foster him. He knows a little about the priests’ magic.”
“An interesting idea. It would please Maraya.”
“And be useful to us! And there in the second row? That’s Lord Gargaron’s son.”
“Is he?” She nods in thoughtful consideration, then speaks to the assembly. “Let this be my judgment upon these children, who were given by their parents into the hands of the god Inkos and through this means delivered to us. Disperse these boys among village families. Let them be raised in those homes as sons. I will take one of the boys into my own household.” She points to Menos.
“Is this how you mean to revenge yourself on Lord Gargaron?” I whisper.
“To raise his son with respect for those he despises is vengeance enough for me.”
A war council is held after the sun goes down. We enter the old temple complex in silent procession, officials wearing the masks of their offices and the rest of us masked only with hope and apprehension. After the upheavals of recent months Mother can’t be comfortable with her daughters out of her sight, but we walk behind her like ordinary attendants, shown no preference. The honored poet escorts her; he’s earned that right.
Soldiers stand in disciplined ranks. Only a few wear uniforms but they are an army, make no mistake. When General Inarsis appears they tap fists to chests and shout “Efea will rise!” When Mother in her butterfly mask steps forward, they drop to one knee.
Statues of gods and rulers overlook this forecourt, but now their heads are concealed by cloth. Only Hayiyin, Mistress of the Sea, still shows her face, her granite shoulders newly wreathed in necklaces of fresh flowers.
In the garden where the High Priest of Seon once took his ease, a bent and aged dame wearing a wasp mask calls the council to order. Inarsis and Mother sit side by side on fancy chairs molded for highborn Saroese. Ro recites a poem in which he describes seeing his reflection in the face of the Mother of All. He’s beautiful when he declaims, a vessel for the truth. Like me, he’s most alive when he’s in motion. There’s no stillness in him, and maybe that’s one of the reasons I get to feeling exhausted when around him.
Administrators report on the readiness of recruits, the availability and manufacture of weapons, and an inventory of supplies. Scouts and hunters give accounts of regions in the north still not under the complete control of the new government, followed by a long and contentious discussion over whether to send soldiers in to defeat the garrisons or to seal off these towns until they can be mopped up later. Different factions argue vociferously about what strategy to take in the south. I’m dismayed by how much disagreement there is, although Inarsis takes it in stride.
Efean refugees from Saryenia describe how the East Saroese army has set up a siege that rings the city on the landward side while their fleet blockades the harbor.
“Has there been starvation?” It is the first time Mother has spoken.
“The royal palace took control of the Grain Market. Strict rationing has been implemented throughout the city. People say the king eats only two meals of porridge every day.”
I press a hand to my heart because it suddenly hurts. Of course that is what Kal would do.